I figured he was ..... I don't know. Dead, or something. But look, he has his own Youtube channel!

http://www.youtube.com/user/DonBluthProductions

So, yeah, thought I'd try Google Chrome today. Why? I don't remember. Something sparked a synapse in my brain, I guess.

ANYWAY. Uhm. It's nice. I like it. It's fast. Like, stupid fast. It's got all kinds of neat little features. Although, inexplicably, there's no middle mouse button scrolling. Like, you can't press the middle mouse button on a page and move the mouse around to scroll. I figured that was pretty standard in web browsers, but it's not a deal breaker.

Also, there's no big community of plugin developers, like Firefox has. Now, that doesn't matter much to me, I don't use that many plugins. Except for AdBlock, which, ahhh, that's the big one. I'm seeing ads again for the first time in years. But it's not that bad. They don't seem to be as obtrusive and obnoxious as they used to be. Except .... except for this one at Rock Paper Shotgun.


CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE OVER THE 1,000,000 VISITOR: CONGRATULATIONS YOU WON!!!!!!!!

Holy SHIT. And of course it's shaking and flashing and BEEPING, all in Flash. Those things are still around? That's like ... that's like MEDIEVAL-level shit.

I tried clicking it, making sure I was in Incognito mode. Oh wow, I could win an Apple iPhone! JUST RELEASED! All I need to do is enter my E-mail address!

Uuuuhhhhgh. Ads. THIS might be a deal breaker. But it's so good otherwise!

I saw Watchmen with  tazel and  fyrdrgon and uhm.




=I




IT WAS FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC! I need to go read the graphic novel now.

EDIT: Before the movie, Tazel and I were discussing Left 4 Dead. He mentioned that one of Francis' lines, in the airport under the statue of Atlas, is "I hate Ayn Rand." I responded with laughter so sudden and maniacal that the girl next to me apparently thought I was dying.

And that's the ZC Awkward Moment of the Day! =D

Apparently I've been playing Titan Quest all week? And it's Friday now? Huh. I have no memory of time passing. But maybe that's because I have the attention span of a doorknob.

Oh and hey, FA's favicon finally works now. It's been a YouTube icon in my bookmarks since I first joined. Wopeifjwoeifjwoeifjwoeifjwoifj.

I can't possibly have clocked over 24 hours of Left 4 Dead in four days ... That's just not ... I don't see how ... That's gotta be a mistake, right?

... And eight hours in Titan Quest in under a day?! The hell??

I, uh. I need a life, apparently.

I bought Left 4 Dead. Now quit bugging me about it! >=|

So, heh, I was browsing Reddit tonight and found this: http://theirtoys.com/sexblog/8-biza.....-fetishes.html I always like reading these things because I secretly hope that they'll mention my own fetishes. Well, hey, there's an entry for furries! And a video full of representative examples! And, uhm, the second picture is one of mine. Huh.

I mean, uhm. It's not like I'm all AAARGH COPYRIGHT, I'm just uh ... inordinately shy. Heh. Realizing that one of my pictures is one step away from internet mainstream is a weird feeling. At least it was fairly clean. And I'm left feeling relieved that this guy didn't actually credit any of the artists in the video, heh.

ALSO!! Apparently two satellites collided in orbit over Russia today. http://science.slashdot.org/article...../02/11/2318226 I was kinda joking about this at first, like, heh, what are the odds? But this could be the start of an ablation cascade which could potentially destroy every satellite currently in orbit and make space flight nearly impossible for generations to come. Scary thought.

Go check this out: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh.....p;pagenumber=1 --- It's a SomethingAwful thread dedicated to making gaming boxart CLASSY, in the vein of classic literature. It starts out good and only becomes more epic from there.

Seriously, the majority of these are so awesome, stylistic, minimalist, so much better than the real thing. Makes me want to try my hand at some myself.

I haven't been able to log onto AIM, YIM or MSN for the past couple of nights. Pidgin keeps crashing on me. I guess I could try Meebo or something, but not being online has given me a great excuse to play TF2 at nights. =| Yeah, I'm not good at multitasking. Finally got the backburner last night. It was great. All dropping down from above and going CRI-CR-CRI-CRI-CRIT-CRITICAL HIT on some poor heavy. (And if that poor heavy was YOU, I apologize.)

Ha. I remember when I was disdaining The Orange Box because it came with TF2. I didn't want to buy TF2! I was going to just buy Portal, but  ailure talked me out of it. Now over a year later I'm playing TF2 almost every night, while Portal is all but forgotten. How about that.

Yeah, I dunno. I felt like I had to make a journal. I'm sorry!

EDIT: OH YEAH! I remember what I was gonna talk about! Tool-assisted speedruns! I watch them all the time on http://tasvideos.org/ , and it's like ... the effort that goes into these things is incredible. I'll often see videos that take the author YEARS to make, constantly optimizing, pushing the game to its limits, finding a new route that saves just a FEW FRAMES ... and then someone else comes by a few months later with a video that's three seconds faster, supplanting it. THE AGONY!

Not that I'd know. I've never made one. But it sounds like a thankless task!

Yeah, that's all.

http://www.side7.com ! Go there! Sign up! Use it as a secondary gallery! I don't care! And then go laugh at my ancient art at http://www.side7.com/ZombieCat/gallery ! But make it THRIVE. Yes! Raise it up from the ashes! Whatever!

ALSO what the hell is the bbcode tag for strikeout text here? I've seriously tried every tag I can find and think of and nothing works, and yet I see it everywhere on FA. OH GOD YES

Just got back from a meetup with ... uhm ...  tazel,  SokiTwopaw,  Fyrdrgon,  Valthonis and uh .... two other furs whose ... names I can't remember? God, it was insane. I hardly ever leave the house and suddenly I'm meeting every fur in a 100 mile radius.

Two hours of pizza and bullshitting. I'm such a social retard. I just kind of stayed quiet, laughed like I was psychotic on occasion and then had a nervous breakdown. Seriously, everyone's like "we should go get ice cream!" and I'm like "I'M GONNA GO HOME NOW HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA =D"

Ohhhh man.

Trials 2: Second Edition is for sale on Steam and you should totally buy it because it's only $2.50 until January 2nd.

=I

GUESS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING ALL WEEK =D THAT'S RIGHT PLAYING TRIALS 2

So uhm. After some mild prodding, I met  tazel for lunch since he just moved nearby and whatnot. It was .... odd. I mean, I enjoyed it immensely, I had a great time talking with him, we had more in common than I realized ...

The thing is, I have extreme social anxiety. Or at least, I thought I did. I was DREADING meeting him more than you could possibly imagine. I was literally terrified. My palms were sweating the entire way there despite the cold. The night before I dreamed about it continually. I wasn't expecting anything bad to happen or anything, it's just the actual ACT of meeting him that had me so nervous.

And yet, when we finally met, it was great. It's like I suddenly went into autopilot and just shut down my higher brain functions.

We talked for over an hour. It was great.

I have an LJ. I never update it. It's at http://zombiecat2001.livejournal.com/profile . I need an excuse to update it with the trivialities of everyday life so that my memories don't go flittering away like butterflies in a black hole. So go read it. Or don't. It's pretty boring either way.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e.....nAftermath.jpg

What do I do now =C

Gothic 3! It's fan-fucking-tastic!

Uhm. Lemme start over. Ok. Ever since  skidd got me into it, I've been a big fan of the Gothic series. It's an obscure trilogy of action RPGs that are expansive, engaging and BRUTALLY DIFFICULT. FUCKING ICE WOLVES.

Uhm. Ok. So it's like, Gothic 1 and 2 are free-roaming, persistent world kind of games. Kind of like Oblivion, but on a much smaller scale. I've actually preferred the world they take place in over any Elder Scrolls game because, despite being much smaller, they're INSANELY detailed. Whereas Oblivion is all heightmapped, Gothic 1 and 2 look lovingly hand-crafted. Densely forested cliffs, overhanging plateaus, caves everywhere ... REAL caves, not just doors leading to a new area.

But Gothic 3! It's like ... it's HUGE, it feels like an Elder Scrolls game in its sheer massivity, and yet it retains that lovingly crafted feel of the last two games! It's a beautiful game, not just because of its graphical prowess, but because the landscape itself is a work of art!

And it's epic in its scope! In Gothic 1 and 2, you basically had to choose between three factions, and then go through a fairly linear story to get to the ending. Here, there are apparently three possible endings, and something like half a dozen factions that you can freelance around in ... and it's fascinating, because you don't have to take the "good" route if you don't want to! See, because orcs have taken over all the cities in the central landmass, right, and there are a group of rebels trying to retake them. And in any other game you'd be working with the rebels and being the hero and all that, but here, you don't HAVE to! You could instead work for the orcs, gain their trust, and actually flush out the resistance! In fact, it's in your best interest to exploit all the groups as much as you can, working them against each other!

What's today, Thursday? I think I've been playing this every chance I get since ... Sunday afternoon, I think. Everyone else is playing Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead and Prince of Persia, and I'm like "I'm playing GOTHIC 3, FUCK YEAH" and they all look at me funny.

It didn't get very good reviews when it came out in '06. Mostly because it was buggy, I think. Even Skidd told me he was disappointed with it. But it's been patched! Granted, it's still glitchy on occasion, but ... but you've just got to look PAST that! Gothic 2 was glitchy too! And yeah, it's brutally difficult, and you'll die a thousand times, but that's part of what makes it SATISFYING!

It's ... it's SO GOOD!

*sniff* I love you all! *sob*

So yeah. I've been playing Spore again lately. And I want to love it SO MUCH. I really do. And I mean, it's oddly addictive, but there's always some stupid thing that seems like it'd be so simple to fix that keeps cropping up and making me hate everything.

Like, I remember bemoaning the fact that you weren't able to beam down onto planets and walk around in space stage .... but oh, wait, I was wrong! You CAN. The problem is that the tool you need to do so, the hologram scout, takes so long to get that I didn't even know it existed. I'm on my third game, I've clocked untold hours in the galaxy, and I JUST NOW realized that the hologram scout lets you beam down onto planets.

It's like, getting tools for your space craft makes NO SENSE. I had to do something like 50 missions for other species to even get ACCESS to the hologram scout, and then I bought it from some tiny spacefaring race with only two planets to their name. How does that even WORK? My race is rated as "omnipotent", yet I have to do strange, arbitrary, unrelated tasks to get access to tools. In any other game you'd have a tech tree or something, and you'd research different paths to get progressively more powerful tools which you can then equip from your own bases, but here it's like ... the REST of the universe has access to everything, but they won't let me use it until I see a certain number of cosmic anomalies, or terraform a certain number of planets, or start a certain number of alliances.

And another thing! I've been playing for all this time, and I STILL can't really sculpt planets to my liking. Yeah, you can buy the basic planet sculpting tools. They're tied to arbitrary goals like everything ELSE you can buy, but at least you CAN get them through your own will. The REST of the tools, the exotic sculpting tools and the planet coloring tools, are apparently just spread haphazardly around the universe. And this pisses me off to no end, because it's like ... Ok, you see a planet with yellow circles around it, awesome, there's something there. And assuming it's not a fake signal and you get attacked by pirates, then there's either a sculpting tool or a rare artifact on the surface. But it's like, the "rare" artifacts are nothing of the sort. 9 times out of 10, it's gonna be a scroll of order, or the fossilized remains of a chew toy, or some sort of geode, or WHATEVER. Which are all useless, except to sell to someone for pocket change. And if it IS a sculpting tool, then half the time it'll be a tool that you ALREADY FUCKING HAVE. What the shit?! This IS a Maxis game, right?! Space mode IS supposed to be kind of a sandbox, right?! Then why the fuck are 90% of the creativity tools more rare than lost relics?!

And then when you do get them, they barely work!! Remember how awesome the terraforming tools in SimCity 4 were? How you could just wave your hand and create huge mountain ranges and craters and canyons? Yeah, sure, all those same tools are in Spore, but good luck using them! You can only use each tool ONCE, and then you have to wait for it to COOL DOWN! What is this, Guild Wars?! Can you imagine trying to do anything in SimCity 4 if each time you clicked "raise terrain", you had to wait for ten seconds?! You'd never get anything done!

There've been, what, three patches for Spore now? These things seem like they'd be so simple to fix. Ditch the cooldown for sculpting tools, don't make it possible for me to get a tool I already have, and make them more common, or at least buyable. Getting tool acquirement to make more sense would be more of a challenge. I'd LOVE to have it so that you could spend spice to research new technologies, but that'd require an overhaul of the entire system. But still, 3 out of 4.

I love this game, I really do, it's just ... it SUCKS sometimes, you know?

I get words stuck in my head like other people get songs stuck in their heads. All day today I've had "valiance" running through my brain. I don't recall ever hearing it before, but apparently it's a real word. Yesterday was "anachronism" all day long. I'm building my dispenser and all I can think of is ANACHRONISM ANACHRONISM ANACHRONISM.

My right thumb is all swollen from holding an X-acto knife all day yesterday. I hope it grows a big horking callous. Then I can draw eyes and a mouth on it and call it Mr. Phillips.

I tried the Left 4 Dead demo when it came out. It certainly is a game. Fun, but I think it's a bad sign when the most fun I had was when me and my teammates were breaking it. We all decided to jump down off the building on the first level instead of braving the zombie-infested interior. I'm Louis, Twile is Bill and a couple other dudes are Francis and Zoey. Francis tries to jump down to the fan units on the next building, but somehow ends up getting knocked down. Zoey and I run off and manage to make it with light injuries, and work our way down to street level. Bill, on the other hand, somehow slips and is hanging off the edge of the building. So I'm laughing my ass off at Bill, Francis is on his back on the fan units trying to shoot him down, Zoey tries to make it back up to the top to help him up but alerts the zombies instead, who all come after me, and ... yeah. I dunno. I never really "got" zombie survival games, so I guess it's not really for me, heh.

I'm not really sure! After all, I only had 862 billion journals in my message center reminding me of the fact! I mean, you never know! It could've been on November 1st this year! It's tricky like that! >=B

... The fan-made translation of Mother 3/Earthbound 2 has been completed. http://mother3.fobby.net/

I spent something like 20 hours over the weekend playing it.

...

I played Earthbound when I was a kid, back when it came out. I always thought of it as a quirky RPG with a weird sense of humor, nothing more. But Mother 3 ... Mother 3 is SO MUCH MORE. It's deep, introspective, heartwarming, heartrending, yet still managed to make me laugh. It's probably something of an acquired taste, but the story alone makes it one of the best games I've ever played.

Looking back at the interview with Itoi, I realize I've completely missed a lot of the symbolism. I need to go through it again.

...

The ending made me cry like an idiot.

It's October! Which means I've been drawing for ten years. Give or take a few days.


That's like, a long time.


=|





ALSO!!! Did you guys know that the Prince of Persia series is TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME?! I just beat Sands of Time last night, and now I'm working on finishing up Warrior Within! This has resulted in unrelenting joy! Why has no one told me how awesome these games were?! All these years, wasted!

Recently, I've been having some problems with my graphics tablet. It's an old refurbished Aiptek Hyperpen 8000u, which I got several years ago for 30 bucks, so I don't really expect much from it. But anyway, lately I noticed it's been really sluggish. The cursor will trail behind for several seconds whenever I get the pen close enough to the tablet to register. I checked it out in the task manager, and found that whenever it does this my CPU usage spikes at 100%. There are two processes that are apparently related to the tablet running, tblmouse.exe and atwtusb.exe, yet neither of them seemed to be the culprits.

So I'm uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers, rebooting each time, trying to get the damn thing to work, but it's still lagging. Now of course it'll still WORK if I uninstall the drivers, right, because Windows just sees it as a mouse. That works fine, no lagging, but I don't get any pressure sensitivity. So I'm messing around with it for about an hour, and then just now, after uninstalling it for the 5th time, I look around in the folder that the driver came in, and notice a copy of atwtusb.exe sitting there. Well hey, I've tried everything else, so I double clicked it.

And, get this, it WORKS. My tablet has no drivers installed, but suddenly, with atwtusb.exe running in the background, I have pressure sensitivity with no lagging.

Also, I just now looked up the process that was spiking my CPU in the first place, and found that it was a part of AVG anti-virus. What?? My anti-virus program, which isn't even monitoring anything, is freaking out whenever I use my tablet? What's up with that?

SO HEY! I picked up Spore on Monday, and have been playing it every chance I have. I've also read a lot of casual reviews, and I notice a lot of people griping on it for the same reasons: Creature stage is boring, Tribal stage is too hard, they all hate my guts, I'm getting my ass kicked in space mode, etc ... and actually, at first, I agreed with them! Tribal and civilization mode was tedious because I was just mindlessly killing things, and space mode was an utter chore. I was expecting an open sandbox, and instead I was answering constant distress calls from my allies, being extorted by neutral species, and being utterly wiped out by anything hostile. My ship seemed to be evenly matched with enemy craft, which seems fair until you realize I'm usually outnumbered 5 to 1. So in short, it was a frustrating, painful experience.

HOWEVER!

I soon realized my problem. I, like so many others before me, had started out as a carnivore on Medium difficulty. Your diet in the cell stage has a MASSIVE impact on the rest of the game. I had probably befriended more species than I extincted in creature mode, but that didn't change the fact that I went into tribal mode as a predator, causing every other tribe to view me with hostility. i had just assumed that angry tribes couldn't be appeased, and so i went through the tedious process of wiping them off the face of the planet. Same with the civ stage. I was a military force, and everyone else hated me as a result. There was nothing I COULD do except go to war.

So I just started over.

This time, I was a herbivore playing on Easy mode. By the time I made it back to tribal stage, I realized I could appease angry tribes by giving food to them. Instead of just killing everyone, it turned into a fairly interesting game of time and resource management. I went into civ mode as a religious power. I formed an alliance with another group of cities, and together we slowly took over the planet, converting cities and inciting wars through diplomacy.

Finally, I made it once more into the space stage, and found a much more relaxed atmosphere. Aliens weren't as hostile, alliances were easier to form, and disasters happened much less frequently. I was suddenly powerful enough to take down space pirates without them running away and healing. I can actually hold my own against hostile factions, if i feel like going to war with them. I'm finally far enough into it to do what I wanted to do in the first place, play around in a huge universe. Sculpting and terraforming planets, meddling in the affairs of primitive tribes, creating planetary zoos, and just exploring the universe. It's always a treat to explore a planet, and discover a creature that you or a friend made.

So yeah! All in all, a wonderful game. Just remember to start playing on EASY. It can kick your ass if you're not prepared.

My only real complaint, other than the unexpected difficulty, is how obscure some of the functions and controls are. For instance, I was looking in vain for some kind of eyedropper tool in the building and vehicle creators, until I stumbled across a tutorial video on spore.com. You have to hold down Alt to get the eyedropper tool? And pressing 3, 4 and 5 switches between its different modes? That's not intuitive at all! Why not just add a couple of more buttons?

But anyway. Yeah. I like it. A lot. I'm also on the Sporapedia as ZombieCat2001, if anyone wants to see my sad little creations. No sporn ... well, except for the raptordeer I just bioengineered in space mode ... see how long until that gets banned ... *cough*

Spore comes out in one week.


Also, unrelated note here, but I'm seriously jonesin' for some clean, high-quality furry art. ArtSpots is nice, but it's no Yerf. Oh god I miss Yerf. I feel like practicing a more toony style. But I'll probably never get around to it. Meh.